hats and automobile veils, made enthusiastic adieu to one faded little
figure on the wharf, who proud and happy gently waved back a gleaming
parrot's cage!

It was Mr. Tinneray, dexterous in all such matters, that caught at a
drooping cerulean form as it toppled over.

"I know'd she'd faint," the pale-eyed gentleman chuckled. He manfully
held his burden until Mrs. Tinneray and Mrs. Bean relieved him. These
ladies, practised in all smelling-bottle and cologne soothings, supplied
also verbal comfort.

"Them young fellows," they explained to Mrs. Tuttle, "is full of their
devilment and you can't never tell what they'll do next. But ain't it
_lucky_, Mis' Tuttle, that it's your own sister has charge of that
bird?"

When at last a pale and interesting lady in blue appeared feebly on
deck, wiping away recurrent tears, she was received with the most
perfect sympathy tempered with congratulations. There may have been a
few winks and one or two nods of understanding which she did not see,
but Mrs. Tuttle herself was petted and soothed like a queen of the
realm, only, to her mind was brought a something of obligation--the
eternal obligation of those who greatly possess--for every excursionist
said,

"My, yes! No need to worry--your sister will take care of that bird like
he was one of her own, and then you can go over in yer ottermobile to
git him--and when you fetch him you can take her home with yer--fer a
visit."

ONNIE[3]

[Note 3: Copyright, 1917, by The Century Company. Copyright, 1918,
by Thomas Beer.]

BY THOMAS BEER

From _The Century Magazine_

Mrs. Rawling ordered Sanford to take a bath, and with the clear vision
of seven years Sanford noted that no distinct place for this process had
been recommended. So he retired to a sun-warmed tub of rain-water behind
the stables, and sat comfortably armpit deep therein, whirring a rattle
lately worn by a snake, and presented to him by one of the Varian tribe,
sons of his father's foreman. Soaking happily, Sanford admired his
mother's garden, spread up along the slope toward the thick cedar
forest, and thought of the mountain strawberries ripening in this hot
Pennsylvania June. His infant brother Peter yelled viciously in the big
gray-stone house, and the great sawmill snarled half a mile away, while
he waited patiently for the soapless water to remove all plantain stains
from his brown legs, the cause of this immersion.

A shadow came between him and the